A/N:

Disclaimer: I do not own the Twilight characters or the rights to any song lyrics, no copyright infringement is intended.

Special Thanks: to Ashley - Pandora's Box is Heavy for her pre-reading and encouragement and to the best Beta in the world Di - Midnight Cougar. I'm blessed to have you both in my corner. Love you ladies.

Summary: Bella lives alone in the small town where she grew up, dividing her time between the bookstore she runs, the bar she half-owns, and the big, expensive dream house she bought with money she doesn't know what to do with. She exists quietly at the edge of the circle of friends she's known since school and avoids everybody else—until the new guy in town crashes a bike in front of her store and wedges himself into her world.

Warning: Brief descriptions and references to past, non-sexual assault against the main character. Themes of physical and emotional recovery from the same.

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Chapter 13

There's no reason to expect Edward to interrupt Sacred Writing Time with food and coffee on Tuesday; there's no reason to expect Edward to come back at all. Still, Bella spends too much time listening for the bell over the door.

It never rings.

She gets no writing done, which is not unusual, but this time, she kind of blames Edward for it. She spends the morning going back and forth between Angry Birds and her empty story file, bored by both. At lunchtime, she walks over to The Bear Cave to get a sandwich and kill some time talking to Bree.

She has a new tattoo on her arm to go with the tattoo artist in her bed, and she's not sure which one she likes best. She rolls up her sleeve and peels back the bandage to show Bella; if ink skill translates into bedroom skill, this artist is definitely a keeper. Bella gets her lunch free when she tells Bree that, which would impress Bella a lot more if she wasn't already part-owner of it.

Wednesday is not much different. No writing. No bell. No Edward. Bella brings her lunch into the bookstore and doesn't bother Bree, but everything else is the same. Bella tells herself it's for the best; she's not ready for Edward, for how she feels when she's with him. But she didn't think she'd shut everything down. She didn't think he would vanish completely. He said they were good.

On Thursday, Bella doesn't wait for the bell. She leaves the house at eight, her laptop and notebook in her backpack, and walks down the hill, past the pharmacy and the farmers market. She can smell fresh bread and warm sugar long before she turns the corner. It's another block, just past the library, before she stands in front of the bakery, her hand white-knuckled around the strap of her backpack, her jaw aching with tension. She's annoyed having to be there in the first place, out of her usual territory, and she's freaked out about facing Edward again. She's seriously considering leaving when a legit customer says, "In or out," from behind her, and pushes past her to reach for the door.

Bella braces herself, and follows the customer in.

She has some lame speech ready, about how she went to all the trouble of introducing Edward to her friends because she thought he was a good guy, and now he's being weird and it's not cool at all. About how it's a small town and they're going to run into each other a lot, and there's no point in trying to avoid each other. It's kind of an angry speech about how they both should just suck it up and deal, but it's been a long time since Bella felt inclined to keep somebody new in her life. And maybe she doesn't know Edward really, really well yet, but she's pretty sure he will accept her logic; he's a rational person, and he doesn't seem like the type to hold a grudge.

The problem is, the guy behind the counter isn't Edward.

The guy behind the counter has spiky black hair, a sharp chin, and a bad attitude, and he glares as if he thinks Bella might be there to rob the place.

"Quit staring at me," the guy snaps. "I may be the hottest thing in the store, but I'm not on the menu. What do you want? There's a line."

"Wow," Bella says, suddenly enlightened. "You're Jake."

"Do I know you?"

"Uh, no. I've heard a lot about you though, most of which just turned out to be extremely accurate."

"Oh?" Jake says, leaning forward with a menacing slant to his eyebrows. And then, "Oh... Oh! Hey, you must be that chick, the paramedic." Jake's face rearranges itself into something less threatening, but still not particularly friendly. "Edward mentioned you."

That doesn't exactly bode well. "I'm not actually a paramedic," Bella says, but Jake's not listening. He's yelling instead, at top volume, for Edward, not even bothering to turn around.

When he finishes alerting the entire county to Bella's presence, he drops his voice back into a more normal range and says, "I'm seeing someone."

"Well, damn," Bella says, blinking. "There go my plans for the evening."

"He said you were funny." Jake doesn't look even a little bit amused. "I'm just telling you in case you decided to wonder if I'm fucking Edward again; we're not that kind of partners."

"Thanks, but um, he cleared that up right off the bat." Now, having met Jake, she'd sooner suspect Edward of kicking kittens. "You say pretty much whatever comes into your head, don't you?"

"It saves time," Jakes says frankly. "It would suck if I got people to like me and they only found out what I'm like later."

"Finding out up-front is not all that great either," Edward says, coming through the door behind the counter. "Hey, Bella." He's wearing faded jeans and a black T-shirt under a white apron. There's a smudge of flour across his right cheekbone, and a little dusting of it along the tops of his arms. It's obscenely close to Bella's initial run at mental baker-porn.

Edward watches her with those stupidly sweet eyes, warm but not exactly comfortable, not exactly smiling. Bella feels like too much of a bitch in that instant even to think about being upset; instead, she just wants to fix what she broke, fast. She wants Edward to go back to looking at her the way he did that first day in the shop, or the other night in the bar, or really any time they've been together that she hasn't acted like a complete idiot.

"Edward," she says. "Can we talk for a minute?"

"Sure." Edward looks around the store like a private spot will manifest itself between the cupcake display and the coffee bar. "Yeah, okay," he says. "I guess—you want to come around to the kitchen?"

"Don't mind me," Jake says. "I'll just stay out here and take care of the entire breakfast rush until the pastries run out."

"Hey, Jake, you know what?" Edward claps him on the shoulder. "Shut the hell up. Bella, come on back."

Bella follows him, past Jake and past racks of bagels, croissants, and muffins. The place smells like heaven, but she's too tense to enjoy it.

Edward stops by a long, bare stainless steel counter next to a deep sink with a sprayer dangling over it. He leans against it, his legs stretching out for miles. His face is a blank slate. "So, what's up?"

"You didn't come by." Bella feels like a moron the second she says it, but there it is. Edward didn't come by after that night at Emmett's, and it hurts. "So, I thought maybe there was something we needed to talk about."

Edward laughs; it sounds weird, strained, and unhappy. "Yeah, well," he says, "Sacred Writing Time, and all..."

"Bullshit."

Edward's head snaps up, a flare of actual anger in his eyes. It's gone as fast as it came, but Bella's grateful for it, glad she saw it. The thought of Edward just blowing her off, not caring—that sucks. That's what she can't handle, the idea of him being indifferent to her, the idea that maybe she's already screwed it up just that bad.

"Look," Bella says in a softer tone, "I'm not exactly the easiest person to get along with. I mean, I'm no Jake or anything—" Edward snorts, and Bella lets herself relax enough to smile. "I'm just saying that I don't actually like most people. I don't really go out of my way to make friends. I was kind of thinking we were on the way there, though, before I spazzed out the other night."

"Dude." Edward comes off the counter and stands in front of her, a weird distance halfway between too close and not quite close enough. "I was giving you some space. I took a shot; you shot me down. I just thought you'd appreciate a breather, that's all."

"Oh." Bella looks up at Edward, with his earnest face and sincere eyes, and it's all she can do not to tackle him right there. "Oh," she says again, "I thought... I thought you were—" She waves a hand aimlessly at the space between them. "Whatever."

Edward grins, dimples on full display, and Bella can suddenly breathe again.

"I'm not whatever," Edward says, and gives Bella's shoulder a little bump. "But listen, if you're not putting out, you don't get the free muffins every day. A guy's gotta have some standards."

"But I saved your life," Bella whines, and Edward laughs and gives her another bump. Then carefully, as if he thinks Bella might bolt again, hooks her into a hug. It's like getting mugged by Bigfoot, though Bella imagines Bigfoot doesn't smell quite so strongly of warm chocolate, and it's the best thing that's happened to her since the last time he had her this close.

"Okay," Edward says quietly into the top of Bella's head, "fair enough. For service above and beyond the call, I guess I can spare a muffin now and then."

Hope everyone is holding up well... work is still kicking my ass! I appreciate the reviews!

Jess